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Summary of the impact

Sussex research has contributed to a shift in public policy away from
seeing climate-induced migration as an imminent security, health and
public order risk (c.f. the Stern Review) towards an understanding
that migration can be an important adaptive response to climate
vulnerability. Specifically, reference to migration as a potential
adaptation to climate change in Paragraph 14f of the Cancun Agreement
of UNFCCC in 2010 reflects the nuanced approach stressed in Sussex
research; through their work with GO-Science and DFID, and international
organisations including the Global Forum on Migration and Development,
UNHCR, IOM and the European Commission, Sussex researchers have
contributed to the development and implementation of this paragraph, and
to a re-framing of international debates.

Underpinning research

The underpinning of research on migration and global environmental change
at Sussex has taken place over a period of more than 15 years, and has
been both conceptual and empirical. At a conceptual level, early work by
Black [see Section 3, R1, R2] conducted during and after a period of
secondment to the UNHCR (1996-97) has been widely cited as challenging
conventional narratives of 'environmental migration' as a problem. Recent
work (since 2008) has elaborated a more-detailed conceptual framework that
is at the core of a major `Foresight' report which ran from 2009-11 and
was published by the UK Government Office of Science in 2011. Building on
initial conceptual developments at Sussex (Black et al. 2011, the
Foresight Project involved over 70 commissioned and peer-reviewed papers,
and has led to a Comment in Nature, and four special issues of
leading journals, including one that contained the core conceptual
approach [R4], which stresses how environmental change does not simply
`drive' migration in a straightforward way but rather is embedded in a
wide range of other `drivers' of migration, and so is linked with
migration in complex direct and indirect ways.

The major findings of this work are threefold. First, the work suggests
that there is a significant and hitherto overlooked category of people
who, far from being vulnerable to migration as a result of global
environmental change (including climate change), are actually `trapped' in
vulnerable areas, unable to migrate. Second, it notes that migration —
especially from rural areas to vulnerable and often low-lying
neighbourhoods in the world's growing mega-cities — is already substantial
and on-going, and is taking people towards, rather than away from, places
that are vulnerable to global environmental change. Third, it identifies
the ways in which — both practically and theoretically — migration can be
a form of adaptation to global environmental change, rather than a
negative consequence arising from it.

Alongside this work, empirical analyses have been conducted in Burkina
Faso, Mexico and Bangladesh that have contributed to the development,
consolidation and extension of this approach. In Burkina Faso, research
with poor communities affected by climate change has contributed to the
development and validation of an Agent-Based Model that provides an
innovative methodology to potentially predict migration influenced by
climate change into the future [R5]. In principle, this provides a basis
for the accurate prediction of migration over a 20-30-year timeframe into
the future, and an initial `proof of concept' is now being taken forward
through a funded Marie Curie fellowship focused on Vietnam. In Mexico,
empirical research in two provinces — Zacatecas and Veracruz — has
explored the varied responses of agricultural communities to climate
stress, and has challenged modelling evidence that predicts a large growth
in Mexican migration to the US as a result of future climate change. Both
these studies frame migration as an adaptation strategy to climate change,
and similar research is nearing completion in a further case study in
Bangladesh (funded by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network).

Details of the impact

From its early genesis in the 1990s, Sussex work on migration and climate
change has had an influence in international policy circles, contributing
to the UNHCR resisting calls to extend international protection to
`climate refugees', and leading to a much more nuanced view of the likely
impact of migration on climate change in the 4th
Assessment Report of the IPCC in 2007, compared to previous reports.
Since 2008, this impact has been consolidated and strengthened through the
direct involvement of Black, Skeldon and Kniveton in a range of
international fora, and through the direct and indirect influence of
Sussex research on the Foresight Migration and Global Environmental
Change report in 2011 (GO-Science 2011; 2012).

Perhaps the most substantial policy change since `climate migration' was
first raised as a matter of concern in the 1980s has been the adoption by
the UNFCCC of the Cancun Adaptation Framework at COP-16 in
December 2010. In Paragraph 14f of the Framework, the UNFCCC recognised
for the first time that migration represents a potential adaptation
strategy in the face of climate change, in contrast to previous framings
of the issue. As noted by Warner [see Section 5, C1], this was as a result
of the fact that `empirical research began to accelerate in the mid- to
late 2000s as a crop of systematic investigation and case studies on
environmental change and migration began to be published. These studies
were complemented by methodological and conceptual development, as well as
analyses of policy implications'. Sussex research was significantly
represented in this work. FAQs for policy-makers at COP-16 produced by the
Climate Change, Environment and Migration Alliance (CCEMA) were
co-authored by Kniveton, whilst the COP was informed by a session on the
impact of migration on climate change and development at the 2010 Global
Forum on Migration and Development, also in Mexico, sponsored by the
governments of the UK and Bangladesh, for which Skeldon drafted a joint
UK-Bangladesh background paper.

Before and after COP-16, Sussex research has actively influenced a range
of other national and international actors to approach this issue from a
more-nuanced perspective. Within the UK, the involvement of Black (as
Chair of the Lead Expert Group, at the invitation of HMG's Chief
Scientific Advisor), as well as Kniveton and Deshingkar in the Foresight
Project of GO-Science on Migration and Global Environmental Change,
resulted in an action plan that included commitments by five international
organisations (World Bank, OECD, UNESCO, OSCE and IOM), three government
departments (DFID, DEFRA, FCO), two research councils (NERC, ESRC) and
Care International [C2]. Additional organisations, including the European
Commission, UNHCR, the UK Climate Change and Migration Coalition, the
Global Forum on Migration and Development and UNICEF, have since used the
research to implement policy change, in part responding to extensive media
coverage of the report [C3]. Thus:

DFID has used the report's findings to promote action at the national
level in several developing countries. A follow-up workshop in Ghana in
March 2012 led to an agreement with the UN Resident Representative and
the Government of Norway to launch targeted assessment and support to
the Government of Ghana on issues of flooding, disaster risk reduction
and practical contingency planning with community groups and the Mayor's
office in slums, initially in Accra but planned to extend to other major
urban areas in the country [C4 & C7].

Following the presentation of findings by Black there in December
2011, the World Bank commissioned six further regional reports on the
topic, including two from Sussex-based authors, to inform their
programming.

Following the presentation of findings by HMG's Chief Scientific
Advisor at the Joint Research Centre of the EU in Brussels, the European
Commission commissioned Black and Banerjee to write a substantive
briefing to inform the development of a new Commission Working Paper on
Migration and Climate Change. This paper was initiated by the 2010
Stockholm Process on migration but, following an interest in the
adaptation possibilities of migration stressed by Sussex research, it
was put on hold until 2012, when Black and Banerjee were brought in
[C5]. The final working paper [C10] drew significantly on their
research.

Following the presentation of findings by Black at the UNHCR in
November 2011, a commissioned policy paper directly informed the launch
of the Nansen Initiative on Disaster-Induced Cross-Border Displacement,
and was included as an annex to the first meeting of the Initiative's
Consultative Committee, on which Black has been invited to serve by the
Government of Norway [C6].

The UK Climate Change and Migration Coalition has used the Foresight
research in developing a briefing paper for UK NGOs which stresses that
NGO communications on the issue should include migration as a
`legitimate adaptation strategy' and `part of the solution to potential
displacement', a key original finding of Sussex research [C8]. UKCCMC
have also developed a `myth-buster' document drawing on the same
research [C9].